Techniques to detect perturbation attacks with an actor-critic framework

ABSTRACT

Embodiments discussed herein may be generally directed to systems and techniques to generate a quality score based on an observation and an action caused by an actor agent during a testing phase. Embodiments also include determining a temporal difference between the quality score and a previous quality score based on a previous observation and a previous action, determining whether the temporal difference exceeds a threshold value, and generating an attack indication in response to determining the temporal difference exceeds the threshold value.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, claims the benefit of andpriority to previously filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/103,137filed Aug. 14, 2018, entitled “TECHNIQUES TO DETECT PERTURBATION ATTACKSWITH AN ACTOR-CRITIC FRAMEWORK”, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments described herein generally relate to reinforcement learningsystems and techniques to detect perturbation attacks utilizing atrained critic agent during the testing phase.

BACKGROUND

Reinforcement Learning is goal-directed machine learning. An agentlearns from direct interaction with its environment, without relying onexplicit supervision and complete models of the environment.Reinforcement learning is a formal framework modeling the interactionbetween a learning agent and its environment in terms of states, actionsand rewards. At each time step, an agent receives a state, selects anaction following a policy, receives a scalar reward, and transitions tothe next state. The agent's goal is to maximize an expected cumulativereward, e.g. the sum-total of each scalar reward received based on anaction. The agent may receive a positive scalar reward for a positiveaction and a negative scalar reward for a negative action. Thus, theagent ‘learns’ by attempting to maximize the expected cumulative reward.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example embodiment of a system.

FIG. 2A illustrates an example embodiment of a first processing flow.

FIG. 2B illustrates an example embodiment of a second processing flow.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a detection diagram.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a plot.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a first logic flow.

FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a first computingarchitecture.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments discussed herein may generally be directed to systems andtechniques to utilize an actor-critic framework to detect attacks onsystems, such as those utilized for autonomous vehicles, robotics,drones, and so forth. More specifically, embodiments include providingreinforcement learning (RL) processing and to leverage the actor-criticframework to detect the attacks. An actor agent, of the agent-criticframework, learns from direct interaction with its environment, e.g.,sensors and processing systems, without relying on explicit supervisionand complete models of the environment. RL is a formal frameworkmodeling the interaction between a learning agent and its environment interms of states, actions, and rewards. At each time step, an actor agentreceives a state, selects an action following a policy, receives ascalar reward, and transitions to the next state. The actor agent is aneural network that maps a policy for a state to an action. Inembodiments, the actor agent may be implemented in hardware only,software only, and combination thereof. Embodiments also include acritic agent or a value function that provides a prediction of thefuture reward, measuring how good each state or state-action pair is.The critic agent may also be implemented in hardware only, softwareonly, and combination thereof.

In embodiments, a system providing RL learns a policy that maps inputsfrom the environment to actions. However, these policies are vulnerablein adversarial environments. That is, an adversary can intentionallyperturb the inputs to trick the policy into yielding an action of theadversary's choosing. In one example, a perturbation attack can causethe self-driving agent to crash causing an accident. Therefore, it isimportant to detect these perturbations in applications where they mightcause a safety issue, e.g., autonomous vehicles.

In embodiments, the actor-critic framework is utilized for betterperformance and faster training convergence. In some embodiments, theactor agent and the critic agent may each be fully connected neuralnetworks for better performance. However, embodiments are not limited inthis manner, and the techniques discussed herein may be applied to anyactor-critic framework to detect an attack. That is, embodiments are notrestricted to the model architecture.

Generally, there are two phases for embodiments discussed herein, atraining phase and a testing phase. In the training phase, the criticagent uses time-difference (TD) learning to improve itself, and theactor agent performs an action. Then the critic agent accesses how goodthe action and environment state or observation to compute a gradientfor training the actor agent. In previous systems, the critic agent istypically not utilized during the testing phase. Only the well-trainedactor would be used to take on input state to perform an action withoutusing the critic.

However, embodiments include utilizing the critic agent in theActor-Critic Framework (a state-of-the-art RL method) during the testingphase at test time (as opposed to at training time) to generate scores,which is the predicted reward, over time. Embodiments include computingthe temporal difference of the scores to detect adversarialperturbations. Moreover, the critic agent, at test time, generatequality scores that enable detection of adversarial perturbations. Thishas three advantages contrasting to a traditional rule-based method andsupervised learning method. First, human labeling is not needed fortraining the critic agent, so this attack detection method isunsupervised. Second, the critic agent is scalable to accept multiplehigh dimensional inputs from heterogeneous sensors. Third, thetechniques discussed herein are more robust because the critic agentevaluates not only the sensor inputs but also the agent's actions (thepolicy). In this case, the subtle perturbation which is hard to detectfrom sensors can be detected from the actor agent's poor behavior.

Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like reference numeralsare used to refer to like elements throughout. In the followingdescription, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details areoutlined in order to provide a thorough understanding thereof. It may beevident, however, that the novel embodiments can be practiced withoutthese specific details. In other instances, well-known structures anddevices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate adescription thereof. The intention is to cover all modifications,equivalents, and alternatives consistent with the claimed subjectmatter.

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a system 100. In variousembodiments, system 100 may be representative of a system orarchitecture suitable for use with one or more embodiments describedherein. More specifically, system 100 includes components, such as anactor-critic framework, to provide RL processing and to leverage theactor-critic framework to detect attacks.

As shown in FIG. 1, system 100 includes multiple elements. One or moreelements may be implemented using one or more circuits, components,registers, processors, software subroutines, modules, or any combinationthereof. Although FIG. 1 shows a limited number of elements in a certaintopology by way of example; it can be appreciated that more or lesselements in any suitable topology may be used in system 100 as desiredfor a given implementation. The embodiments are not limited in thiscontext.

In various embodiments, system 100 may include a computing device 105which may be any type of computer or processing device including apersonal computer, desktop computer, tablet computer, netbook computer,notebook computer, laptop computer, server, server farm, blade server,or any other type of server, and so forth. In embodiments, the computingdevice 105 may be part of a autonomous vehicle system, a robot system, adrone system, and so forth.

In various embodiments, computing device 105 may include processor 102.Processor 102 may be implemented using any processor or logic device.The processor 102 may be one or more of any type of computationalelement, such as but not limited to, a microprocessor, a processor,central processing unit, digital signal processing unit, dual-coreprocessor, mobile device processor, desktop processor, single coreprocessor, a system-on-chip (SoC) device, complex instruction setcomputing (CISC) microprocessor, a reduced instruction set (RISC)microprocessor, a very long instruction word (VLIW) microprocessor, orany other type of processor or processing circuit on a single chip orintegrated circuit. The processor 102 may be connected to andcommunicate with the other elements of the computing system via aninterconnect, such as one or more buses, control lines, and data lines.

In one embodiment, computing device 105 may include memory 104 coupledto processor 102. Memory 104 may be coupled to processor 102 via andinterconnect, or by a dedicated communications bus between processor 102and memory 104, as desired for a given implementation. The memory unit104 may be implemented using any machine-readable or computer-readablemedia capable of storing data, including both volatile and non-volatilememory. In some embodiments, the machine-readable or computer-readablemedium may include a non-transitory medium. The embodiments are notlimited in this context.

The computing device 105 may include a graphics processing unit (GPU)106, in various embodiments. The GPU 106 may include any processingunit, logic or circuitry optimized to perform graphics-relatedoperations as well as the video decoder engines and the framecorrelation engines. The GPU 106 may be used to render 2-dimensional(2-D) and/or 3-dimensional (3-D) images for various applications such asvideo games, graphics, computer-aided design (CAD), simulation andvisualization tools, imaging, etc. Various embodiments are not limitedin this manner; GPU 106 may process any type of graphics data such aspictures, videos, programs, animation, 3D, 2D, objects images and soforth.

In various embodiments, computing device 105 may include a display 145.Display 145 may constitute any display device capable of displayinginformation received from processor circuit 102, and the GPU 106.

In various embodiments, computing device 105 may include storage 146.Storage 146 may be implemented as a non-volatile storage device such as,but not limited to, a magnetic disk drive, optical disk drive, tapedrive, an internal storage device, an attached storage device, flashmemory, battery backed-up SDRAM (synchronous DRAM), and/or a networkaccessible storage device. In embodiments, storage 146 may includetechnology to increase the storage performance enhanced protection forvaluable digital media when multiple hard drives are included, forexample. Further examples of storage 746 may include a hard disk, floppydisk, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM), Compact Disk Recordable(CD-R), Compact Disk Rewriteable (CD-RW), optical disk, magnetic media,magneto-optical media, removable memory cards or disks, various types ofDVD devices, a tape device, a cassette device, or the like. Theembodiments are not limited in this context.

In various embodiments, computing device 105 may include one or moreinput/output (I/O) interfaces 144. Examples of I/O interface 144 mayinclude Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports/adapters, IEEE 1374 Firewireports/adapters, serial interfaces, parallel interfaces, High-DefinitionMultimedia Interface (HDMI) interface, a wired or wireless networkinginterface, and so forth. The embodiments are not limited in thiscontext.

In embodiments, the computing device 105 may couple with one or moreother environments and systems, such as processing environment 111, viathe I/O interface 144. For example, the processing environment 111 mayinclude one or more sensor devices 107. The one or more sensor devices107 may be a device capable of measuring a characteristic or property ofthe environment and provides data to the computing device 105. Examplesof a sensor device 107 include, but are not limited, a camera togenerate image data, a laser range finder to generate range data, aradio detection and ranging (RADAR) device to generate RADAR data, aglobal positioning system (GPS) device to generate location data, anultrasonic device to generate ultrasonic data, a sound detection andranging (SONAR) device to generate SONAR data, an altimeter to generatealtitude data, a gyroscope to generate orientation and velocity data, atachymeter, and an accelerometer to determine acceleration data.Embodiments are not limited to these examples.

The sensor devices 107 provide data to the computing device 105, and thecomputing device 105 including the actor-critic framework may utilizethe data to perform RL processing and attack detection. Moreover, thedata may provide an observation for the processing environment 111 atany given point in time, e.g., the observation including the state ofthe processing environment 111 at the time a measurement is taken.

In embodiments, the computing device 105 includes an actor agent 108 anda critic agent 147 as part of the actor-critic framework. The actoragent 108 utilizes the data, e.g., an observation, and cause an actionto be performed in the processing environment 111. For example, theactor agent 108 may communicate information via one or more I/Ointerfaces 144 to one or more control system(s) 109 to cause an action.In one example, the actor agent 108 may communicate an action or a setof instructions via an application programming interface (API) throughone or more of the I/O interfaces 144 to a control system(s) 109. Theaction or set of instructions causes the control system(s) 109 toperform one or more tasks, e.g., causes a vehicle to brake, make a turn,accelerate, etc.

In embodiments, the actor agent 108 is a neural network that generatesactions based on a policy and a state or observations of the processingenvironment. In one example, the policy may be a behavioral policy usedto generate actions. A target policy may be evaluated and updated, e.g.,low-variance gradient estimates may be utilized to determine an optimalpolicy. Moreover, the policy is a function that indicates the action totake in a certain state.

In embodiments, the actor agent 108 may function with the critic agent147 during a training phase to determine an optimal policy for theprocessing environment 111. For example, the computing device 105 may befed training data, e.g., a known set of sensor inputs, to train theactor agent 108 and the critic agent 147. The actor agent 108 maygenerate actions for the processing environment 111, and the processingenvironment 111 may provide observations and rewards. More specifically,the processing environment 111 may provide feedback (an observation) anda reward based on an action from the actor agent 108. The reward may bea scalar reward from the processing environment 111, which gives theactor agent 108 an indication of the quality of that action.

The critic agent 147 determines a prediction of a future reward based onthe observation and reward from the processing environment 111. Morespecifically, the critic agent is a value function that measures howgood each state or state-action pair is. The goal of the critic agent147 is to find a policy that maximizes the total accumulated reward,also called the return. By following a given policy and processing therewards, the critic agent 147 can build estimates of the return. In thetraining stage, the critic agent 147 may use temporal-difference (TD)learning to improve itself and the actor agent 108 performs an action.The critic agent 147 accesses how good the action and environment stateto compute a gradient for training the actor agent 108, for example.

In embodiments, the actor agent 108 and the critic agent 147 may processdata and information during a testing phase, e.g., receivingreal-time/live data from the processing environment 111 and detectingattacks. The actor agent 108 may be used to generate actions for theprocessing environment 111 and receive observations and rewards from theprocessing environment 111. Also, the actor agent 108 may provideactions to the critic agent 147, which may be used by the critic agent147 with the observations and rewards from the processing environment111 to generate scores that may be used to detect adversarial attacks.One example of an attack that may be detected by system 100 discussedherein may be a Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM) attack. Another examplemay be a random attack. These types of attacks may be used to add asubtle value to modify the input features, e.g., attacking byperturbation. System 100 is to detect those attacks before an adverseevent occurs, e.g., a self-driving car crashes. The different types ofattacks are explained in more detail below.

$\begin{matrix}{{{Equation}1{illustrates}{Fast}{Gradient}{Sign}:}\text{ }{{\eta = {\in {{sign}\left( \frac{\Delta{J\left( {\theta,x,y} \right)}}{\Delta x} \right)}}},}} & (1.)\end{matrix}$

where J(θ, x, y) is the training cost of the neural network(actor-critic framework) with parameter θ and x to be the input to themodel and y to be the associated label. ϵ is the parameter.

Equation 2 illustrates Random Attack:η˜ϵU(0,1),  (2.)

where U(0,1) is a uniform distribution with a range of [0, 1] and ϵ isthe parameter. Finally, both attack generate adversarial sample x′ byperturbing original input x with perturbation δ, as illustrated inequation 3.x′=x+δ  (3.)

In embodiments, the adversarial sample, x′, is the sum over originalsample x and the perturbation δ. The actor agent 108 and critic agent147 observes a sequence of feature vectors {x, x₂ . . . }, x∈R^(d) fromthe sensors 107. Perturbing the original feature vectors, an adversarycan generate a sequence of perturbed samples, {x′₁, x′₂ . . . },x′∈R^(d), to influence the for the actor-critic framework policy.

In embodiments, the critic agent 147 may detect these attacks byutilizing the sensor device's inputs and the actor agent's actions togenerate a time sequence of quality scores. These quality scores arehighly correlated with the attacks and can be detected using a temporaldifference detector (TDD) 148. More specifically, the well-trainedcritic agent 147 will take on inputs from both environment state andaction from the actor agent 108 to predict a score, s_(t)∈Score, t∈N.The score is the quality of the observation-action pair while it wasoriginally used to improve the training performance of the actor agent108. The critic agent 147 further determines a sequence of qualityscores, {s₁, s₂ . . . }⊂Score, where each score is determined andcollected based on each action generated by the actor agent 108 andperformed by the processing environment 111. If no attack happens, theactor agent 108 performs normal actions, and the critic agent 147generates a sequence of stable scores with high values. On the otherhand, if the actor agent 108 is attacked, its output action tends to beaffected to produce poor action, which is detected by the critic agent147. Further, the actions generated by the actor agent 108 worsen overtime until the actor agent 108 causes a bad/negative event. In thiscase, the sequence of scores determined by the critic agent 147 havehigh fluctuation and then end up with a low score.

In embodiments, the computing device 105 including the TDD 148 receiveseach score, e.g., the sequence of the scores, generated from the criticagent 147 and is used to detect an attack. More specifically, the TDD148 calculates the difference value of the score sequence between thecurrent time step and the last time step, as illustrated by Equation 4.d _(t) =|s _(t) −s _(t-1) |, s _(t)∈Score, t∈N.  (4.)

When d_(t) is higher than (exceeds) a threshold value ξ∈R, an event maybe detected as an attack by the TDD 148 and the system. The thresholdvalue may be preset and determined before the testing phase. In oneexample, the threshold value may be based using training data sets withknown attacks to determine the threshold value exceed when the attackoccurs. In embodiments, the threshold value setting relies upon whatrange of scores the critic network evaluates the normal examples and theadversarial examples. For example, the range of scores can be determinedduring a training or warm-up process in which the system operates theactor agent and the critic agent inputting two cases, e.g., a normalcase without an attack and adversarial case with attack, to measure therange of the scores from the critic agent. The system may then use therange of the evaluation scores to set the threshold value. If themaximum value of the normal case is not bigger than the mean value inthe adversarial case, the system may set the threshold value to be themaximum value of the normal case. If the maximum value of the normalcase is bigger than the mean value in the adversarial case, the systemmay set the threshold value to be lower which is in the range of meanvalue of the normal-case plus one to plus two standard deviation.

In embodiments, the TDD 148 may generate an attack indication inresponse to determining the temporal difference exceeds the thresholdvalue. The attack indication may be one or more of an audio alert, avisual alert, and a haptic alert. The attack indication may also causethe system 100 to enter an emergency operating state. In the emergencyoperating state, the system 100 may shutdown and/or perform one or moreactions to prevent the bad event from occurring, e.g., slow/stop anautonomous vehicle. In another example, the attack indication mayrequire a user to interface with the system 100, e.g., provide anacknowledgment of the attack indication. Embodiments are not limited tothese examples, and the system 100 may perform one or more other actionsto mitigate and/or prevent a bad event from occurring.

In embodiments, the TDD 148 may permit processing of a next observationand a next action in response to determining the temporal differencedoes not exceed the threshold value. For example, the TDD 148 may permitthe system 100 to continue to process observations and take actionsbased on the observations.

FIG. 2A illustrates a first processing flow 200 illustrating processesthat may be performed by components of system 100 during a trainingphase of operation for the system 100. For example, FIG. 2A illustratesone or more operations that may be performed by the actor agent 108 andthe critic agent 147 based on observations generated by the processingenvironment 111 including the sensor device(s) 107 and the controlsystem(s) 109. In the training phase, the critic agent 147 usestime-difference (TD) learning to improve itself and the actor agent 108performs an action. Then the critic agent 147 accesses how good theaction and environment state or observation to compute a gradient fortraining the actor agent, for example.

At line 201, the actor agent 108 may cause an action to be performed bythe processing environment 111, which may cause one or more controlsystems 109 to perform one or more instructions, for example. Inembodiments, the processing environment 111 may generate observations,e.g., sensor data, and rewards based on the actions caused by the actoragent 108. In embodiments, the observations may be feedback to the actoragent 108 and to the critic agent 147 at line 205. Further and at line203, the processing environment 111 may provide a reward to the criticagent 147. The reward may be a scalar reward from the processingenvironment 111, which gives the actor agent 108 and the critic agent147 an indication of the quality of that action.

The critic agent 147 determines a prediction of a future reward based onthe observation and reward from the processing environment 111. Morespecifically, the critic agent 147 provides a value function thatmeasures how good each state or state-action pair is. The goal of thecritic agent 147 is to find a policy that maximizes the totalaccumulated reward, also called the return. By following a given policyand processing the rewards, the critic agent 147 can build estimates ofthe return. In the training stage, the critic agent 147 may usetemporal-difference (TD) learning to improve itself and the actor agent108 performs an action. The critic agent 147 accesses the action andenvironment state to compute a gradient for training the actor agent108, for example, and provide values that may be used by the actor agent108 at line 207. The actor agent 108 may use the values to makeadjustments and generate actions. In the training phase, the criticagent provides the gradient values calculated by itself to update theweights of the actor agent.

FIG. 2B illustrates a second processing flow 250 illustrating processesthat may be performed by components of system 100 during a testing phaseof operation for the system 100. For example, FIG. 2B illustrates one ormore operations that may be performed by the actor agent 108, the criticagent 147, and the temporal difference detector (TDD) 148 based onobservations generated by the processing environment 111 including thesensor device(s) 107 and the control system(s) 109.

As previously discussed, the actor agent 108 and the critic agent 147may process data and information during the testing phase when receivingreal-time/live data from the processing environment 111 and detectattacks. At line 251, the actor agent 108 may generate and provideactions for the processing environment 111 and the critic agent 147. Anaction may cause the processing environment 111 to perform one or moreinstructions, for example. Further and at line 255, the actor agent 108and the critic agent 147 may receive observations from the processingenvironment 111, which may be based on an action performed by theprocessing environment 111. At line 253, the processing environment 111may also provide rewards to the critic agent 147 based on the actions.In embodiments, the critic agent 147 may use the observations, actions,and rewards to generate a quality score that may be used to detectadversarial attacks.

In embodiments, the critic agent 147 utilize the information from theactor agent 108 and the processing environment 111 over a number ofactions to generate a time sequence of quality scores at line 257. Thesequality scores are highly correlated with the attacks and can bedetected using the TDD 148. More specifically, the well-trained criticagent 147 will take on inputs from both environment state and actionfrom the actor agent 108 to predict a score, s_(t)∈Score, t∈N. Thequality score is the quality of the observation-action pair while it wasoriginally used to improve the training performance of the actor agent108. The critic agent 147 further determines a sequence of qualityscores, {s₁, s₂ . . . }⊂Score, where each score is determined andcollected based on each action generated by the actor agent 108 andperformed by the processing environment 111. If no attack happens, theactor agent 108 performs normal actions, and the critic agent 147generates a sequence of stable scores with high values. On the otherhand, if the actor agent 108 is attacked, its output action tends to beaffected to produce poor action, which is detected by the critic agent147. Further, the actions generated by the actor agent 108 worsen overtime until the actor agent 108 causes a bad/negative event. In thiscase, the sequence of scores determined by the critic agent 147 havehigh fluctuation and then end up with a low score.

In embodiments, the computing device 105 including the TDD 148 receiveseach score, e.g., the sequence of the scores, generated from the criticagent 147 and is used to detect an attack. More specifically, the TDD148 calculates the difference value of the score sequence between thecurrent time step and the last time step, and when the difference ishigher than (exceeds) a threshold value SER, an event may be detected asan attack by the TDD 148. In embodiments, the TDD 148 may provideresults at line 259. For example, the TDD 148 may generate an attackindication in response to determining the temporal difference exceeds(or meets) the threshold value. In another example, the TDD 148 maypermit processing of a next observation and the next action in responseto determining the temporal difference does not exceed the thresholdvalue. For example, the TDD 148 may permit the system 100 to continue toprocess observations and take actions based on the observations. Thesystem 100 may continue to process data and perform actions until anattack is detected and/or the system 100 finishes process, e.g., thevehicle reaches its' destination.

FIG. 3 illustrates detection scenario diagram 300 for an example FGSMattack with ϵ=0.005 at the 200th step. The left y-axis is the detectionscore, and the right y-axis is the reward function of the actor agent.The x-axis is the time step, and the black bar line indicates theoccurrence of the attack. The reward function can go up and down whilethe detection score, Diff. However, the detection score stays undercertain low values and go up when the anomaly or attack occurs. Bymeasuring the fluctuations in sequence values of detection score, thesystem can detect the attack above the threshold value 315. Morespecifically, diagram 300 includes a reward line 305 that illustratesrewards based on actions and a difference line 310 generated from asequence of quality scores. As can be seen in diagram 300 an attack mayoccur, and a detection of the attack may be detected a number of stepsafter the attack based on the difference line 310 exceeding thethreshold value 315. Note that the number of step is time step torepresent a time unit about 0.2 seconds on TORCS simulator.

FIG. 4 illustrates plot 400 including a plot ROC curve with respect toall true positive rate and false positive rate given a certain thresholdvalue. The AUC score is calculated as the area under the ROC curve. Ifthe curve convex toward to the upper left, like embodiments discussedherein, the actor agent would have higher AUC score and can achieve hightrue positive rates at certain low false positive rates. That is, thecritic agent network can effectively detect the attack. If the curveconvex toward to the lower right, like illustrated in the random case,the actor agent would have lower AUC score and can only achieve low truepositive rate with the high false positive rate. As shown in the FIG. 4,utilizing embodiments discussed herein can achieve a 92% AUC score whichis better than the random result with a 39% AUC score.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example embodiment of a first logic flow 500. Thelogic flow 500 may be representative of some or all of the operationsexecuted by one or more embodiments described herein. For example, thelogic flow 500 may illustrate operations performed by system 100including processing circuitry and memory.

The logic flow 500 includes causing an action in a processingenvironment based on an observation during a testing phase at block 505.More specifically, an actor agent may send an action to a processingenvironment that may process and perform the action. The processingenvironment may generate an observation and a reward based on theaction.

In some embodiments, the logic flow 500 includes generating a qualityscore based on the observation and the action at block 510. Inembodiments, the quality score is based on the observation-action pair asequence of quality scores are highly correlated with the attacks. Thus,the quality scores can be used to detect attacks. More specifically andat blocks 515 and 520, the logic flow 500 includes determining atemporal difference between the quality score and a previous qualityscore and determining whether the temporal difference exceeds athreshold value. At block 525, the logic flow 500 includes generating anattack indication in response to determining the temporal differenceexceeds the threshold value and/or at block 530 permits processing of anext observation and a next action in response to determining thetemporal difference does not exceed the threshold value.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture600 suitable for implementing various embodiments as previouslydescribed. In one embodiment, the computing architecture 600 may includeor be implemented as part of system 100.

As used in this application, the terms “system” and “component” areintended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, acombination of hardware and software, software, or software inexecution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computingarchitecture 600. For example, a component can be, but is not limited tobeing, a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive,multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), anobject, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or acomputer. By way of illustration, both an application running on aserver and the server can be a component. One or more components canreside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component canbe localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or morecomputers. Further, components may be communicatively coupled to eachother by various types of communications media to coordinate operations.The coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directionalexchange of information. For instance, the components may communicateinformation in the form of signals communicated over the communicationsmedia. The information can be implemented as signals allocated tovarious signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal.Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages.Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplaryconnections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and businterfaces.

The computing architecture 600 includes various common computingelements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors,co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals,interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards,multimedia input/output (I/O) components, power supplies, and so forth.The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by thecomputing architecture 600.

As shown in FIG. 6, the computing architecture 600 includes a processingunit 604, a system memory 606 and a system bus 608. The processing unit604 can be any of various commercially available processors.

The system bus 608 provides an interface for system componentsincluding, but not limited to, the system memory 606 to the processingunit 604. The system bus 608 can be any of several types of busstructure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or withouta memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of avariety of commercially available bus architectures. Interface adaptersmay connect to the system bus 608 via slot architecture. Example slotarchitectures may include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port(AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA),Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer MemoryCard International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.

The computing architecture 600 may include or implement various articlesof manufacture. An article of manufacture may include acomputer-readable storage medium to store logic. Examples of acomputer-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capableof storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatilememory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasablememory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples oflogic may include executable computer program instructions implementedusing any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code,interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code,object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also beat least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on anon-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executedby one or more processors to enable performance of the operationsdescribed herein.

The system memory 606 may include various types of computer-readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information. In the illustratedembodiment shown in FIG. 6, the system memory 606 can includenon-volatile memory 610 and/or volatile memory 612. A basic input/outputsystem (BIOS) can be stored in the non-volatile memory 610.

The computer 602 may include various types of computer-readable storagemedia in the form of one or more lower speed memory units, including aninternal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) 614, a magnetic floppy diskdrive (FDD) 616 to read from or write to a removable magnetic disk 618,and an optical disk drive 620 to read from or write to a removableoptical disk 622 (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). The HDD 614, FDD 616 andoptical disk drive 620 can be connected to the system bus 608 by a HDDinterface 624, an FDD interface 626 and an optical drive interface 628,respectively. The HDD interface 624 for external drive implementationscan include at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE1394 interface technologies.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatileand/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executableinstructions, and so forth. For example, a number of program modules canbe stored in the drives and memory units 610, 612, including anoperating system 630, one or more application programs 632, otherprogram modules 634, and program data 636. In one embodiment, the one ormore application programs 632, other program modules 634, and programdata 636 can include, for example, the various applications and/orcomponents of the system 700.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer 602 throughone or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard 638 anda pointing device, such as a mouse 640. Other input devices may includemicrophones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency (RF) remotecontrols, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles, finger printreaders, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers,touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs, trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and other input devices areoften connected to the processing unit 604 through an input deviceinterface 642 that is coupled to the system bus 608, but can beconnected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394 serialport, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

A monitor 644 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus 608 via an interface, such as a video adaptor 646. Themonitor 644 may be internal or external to the computer 602. In additionto the monitor 644, a computer typically includes other peripheraloutput devices, such as speakers, printers, and so forth.

The computer 602 may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections via wire and/or wireless communications to one or moreremote computers, such as a remote computer 648. The remote computer 648can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer,portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peerdevice or other common network node, and typically includes many or allthe elements described relative to the computer 602, although, forpurposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 650 is illustrated.The logical connections depicted include wire/wireless connectivity to alocal area network (LAN) 652 and/or larger networks, for example, a widearea network (WAN) 654. Such LAN and WAN networking environments arecommonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-widecomputer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to aglobal communications network, for example, the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 602 is connectedto the LAN 652 through a wire and/or wireless communication networkinterface or adaptor 656. The adaptor 656 can facilitate wire and/orwireless communications to the LAN 652, which may also include awireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with thewireless functionality of the adaptor 656.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 602 can includea modem 658, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 654,or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 654,such as by way of the Internet. The modem 658, which can be internal orexternal and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to the system bus608 via the input device interface 642. In a networked environment,program modules depicted relative to the computer 602, or portionsthereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 650. It willbe appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary andother means of establishing a communications link between the computerscan be used.

The computer 602 is operable to communicate with wire and wirelessdevices or entities using the IEEE 602 family of standards, such aswireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication (e.g.,IEEE 602.11 over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes at leastWi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wirelesstechnologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefinedstructure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoccommunication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radiotechnologies called IEEE 602.118 (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure,reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used toconnect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks(which use IEEE 602.3-related media and functions).

The various elements of the devices as previously described withreference to FIGS. 1-5 may include various hardware elements, softwareelements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements mayinclude devices, logic devices, components, processors, microprocessors,circuits, processors, circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors,capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits, applicationspecific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD),digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA),memory units, logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips,microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of software elements mayinclude software components, programs, applications, computer programs,application programs, system programs, software development programs,machine programs, operating system software, middleware, firmware,software modules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures,software interfaces, application program interfaces (API), instructionsets, computing code, computer code, code segments, computer codesegments, words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. However,determining whether an embodiment is implemented using hardware elementsand/or software elements may vary in accordance with any number offactors, such as desired computational rate, power levels, heattolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates, output datarates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design or performanceconstraints, as desired for a given implementation.

The detailed disclosure now turns to providing examples that pertain tofurther embodiments. Examples one through twenty-five provided below areintended to be exemplary and non-limiting.

In a first example, embodiments may include a system, a device, anapparatus, and so forth including memory to store instructions, andprocessing circuitry coupled with the memory. Embodiments also includean actor agent, executable by the processing circuitry, to cause anaction in a processing environment based on an observation during atesting phase, and a critic agent, executable by the processingcircuitry, to generate a quality score based on the observation and theaction caused by the actor agent during the testing phase. Embodimentsalso include a temporal difference detector, executable by theprocessing circuitry to determine a temporal difference between thequality score and a previous quality score based on a previousobservation and a previous action, determine whether the temporaldifference exceeds a threshold value, generate an attack indication inresponse to determining the temporal difference exceeds the thresholdvalue, and permit processing of a next observation and a next action inresponse to determining the temporal difference does not exceed thethreshold value.

In a second example and furtherance of the first example, embodimentsinclude processing wherein the attack indication to indicate anoccurrence of an attack via an input in the processing environment, theattack including one or more of a Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM)attack and a random attack.

In a third example and furtherance of any previous example, embodimentsinclude the actor agent to cause a series of actions including theaction and the previous action, and the critic agent to determine asequence of quality scores based on each action of the series of actionsand an associated observation for each action.

In a fourth example and furtherance of any previous example, embodimentsinclude the critic agent to determine temporal differences betweenquality scores of consecutive actions of the series of actions and theassociated observations.

In a fifth example and furtherance of any previous example, embodimentsinclude the critic agent to determine whether each of the temporaldifferences exceeds the threshold value, permit the actor agent to causea next action in the processing environment in response to determining atemporal difference of the temporal differences does not exceed thethreshold value, and generate an attack indication and prohibit theactor agent from causing a next action, in response to determining atemporal difference of the temporal differences exceeds the thresholdvalue.

In a sixth example and furtherance of any previous example, embodimentsinclude the critic agent to perform a training phase prior to generatingthe quality score and generating the quality score during the testingphase

In a seventh example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include the critic agent to train the actor agent during thetraining phase using temporal difference learning.

In an eighth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include one or more sensor devices to generate data for theprocessing environment, the sensor devices including at least one of acamera, a laser range finder, a radio detection and ranging (RADAR)device, a global positioning system (GPS) device, an ultrasonic device,a sound detection and ranging (SONAR) device, an altimeter, a gyroscope,a tachymeter, and an accelerometer.

In a ninth example and furtherance of any previous example, embodimentsinclude a storage to store a sequence of quality scores including thequality score, each quality score of the sequence of quality scoresutilized to determine a temporal difference.

In a tenth example and furtherance of any previous example, embodimentsinclude a computer-implemented method, including generating a qualityscore based on an observation and an action caused by an actor agentduring a testing phase, the action performed in a processing environmentbased on the observation, determining a temporal difference between thequality score and a previous quality score based on a previousobservation and a previous action, determining whether the temporaldifference exceeds a threshold value; generating an attack indication inresponse to determining the temporal difference exceeds the thresholdvalue; and permitting processing of a next observation and a next actionin response to determining the temporal difference does not exceed thethreshold value.

In an eleventh example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including processingthe attack indication indicates an occurrence of an attack via an inputin the processing environment, the attack including one or more of aFast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM) attack and a random attack.

In a twelfth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including causing aseries of actions including the action and the previous action, anddetermining a sequence of quality scores based on each action of theseries of actions and an associated observation for each action.

In a thirteenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including determiningtemporal differences between quality scores of consecutive actions ofthe series of actions and the associated observations.

In a fourteenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including determiningwhether each of the temporal differences exceeds the threshold value,permitting a next action in the processing environment in response todetermining a temporal difference of the temporal differences does notexceed the threshold value, and generating an attack indication andprohibiting a next action, in response to determining a temporaldifference of the temporal differences exceeds the threshold value.

In a fifteenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including performinga training phase prior to generating the quality score and generatingthe quality score during the testing phase.

In a sixteenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including performingthe training during the training phase using temporal differencelearning.

In a seventeenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include a computer-implemented method, including receivingdata from one or more sensor devices in the processing environment, thesensor devices including at least one of a camera, a laser range finder,a radio detection and ranging (RADAR) device, a global positioningsystem (GPS) device, an ultrasonic device, a sound detection and ranging(SONAR) device, an altimeter, a gyroscope, a tachymeter, and anaccelerometer.

In an eighteenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments A non-transitory machine-readable medium containinginstructions, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor toperform operations, the operations to generate a quality score based onan observation and an action caused by an actor agent during a testingphase, the action performed in a processing environment based on theobservation, determine a temporal difference between the quality scoreand a previous quality score based on a previous observation and aprevious action, determine whether the temporal difference exceeds athreshold value, generate an attack indication in response todetermining the temporal difference exceeds the threshold value, andpermit processing of a next observation and a next action in response todetermining the temporal difference does not exceed the threshold value.

In a nineteenth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include processing the attack indication indicates anoccurrence of an attack via an input in the processing environment, theattack including one or more of a Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM)attack and a random attack.

In a twentieth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include cause a series of actions including the action andthe previous action, and determine a sequence of quality scores based oneach action of the series of actions and an associated observation foreach action.

In a twenty-first example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include operations to determine temporal differences betweenquality scores of consecutive actions of the series of actions and theassociated observations.

In a twenty-second example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include operations to determine whether each of the temporaldifferences exceeds the threshold value, permit a next action in theprocessing environment in response to determining a temporal differenceof the temporal differences does not exceed the threshold value, andgenerate an attack indication and prohibiting a next action, in responseto determining a temporal difference of the temporal differences exceedsthe threshold value.

In a twenty-third example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include operations to perform a training phase prior togenerating the quality score and generating the quality score during thetesting phase.

In a twenty-fourth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include operations to perform the training during thetraining phase using temporal difference learning.

In a twenty-fifth example and furtherance of any previous example,embodiments include operations to receive data from one or more sensordevices in the processing environment, the sensor devices including atleast one of a camera, a laser range finder, a radio detection andranging (RADAR) device, a global positioning system (GPS) device, anultrasonic device, a sound detection and ranging (SONAR) device, analtimeter, a gyroscope, a tachymeter, and an accelerometer.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “one embodiment”or “an embodiment” along with their derivatives. These terms mean that aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connectionwith the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Theappearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in thespecification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.Further, some embodiments may be described using the expression“coupled” and “connected” along with their derivatives. These terms arenot necessarily intended as synonyms for each other. For example, someembodiments may be described using the terms “connected” and/or“coupled” to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physicalor electrical contact with each other. The term “coupled,” however, mayalso mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with eachother, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided toallow a reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technicaldisclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not beused to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Inaddition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen thatvarious features are grouped together in a single embodiment for thepurpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is notto be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimedembodiments require more features than are expressly recited in eachclaim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matterlies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thusthe following claims are hereby incorporated into the DetailedDescription, with each claim standing on its own as a separateembodiment. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which”are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms“comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,”“second,” “third,” and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are notintended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

What has been described above includes examples of the disclosedarchitecture. It is, of course, not possible to describe everyconceivable combination of components and/or methodologies, but one ofordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinationsand permutations are possible. Accordingly, the novel architecture isintended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variationsthat fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus, comprising: memory to storeinstructions; and processing circuitry coupled with the memory, theprocessing circuitry to: generate a quality score based on anobservation and an action, the action performed in a processingenvironment based on the observation; determine a temporal differencebetween the quality score and a previous quality score based on aprevious observation and a previous action; determine whether thetemporal difference exceeds a threshold value; generate an attackindication when the temporal difference exceeds the threshold value; andpermit processing of a next observation and a next action when thetemporal difference does not exceed the threshold value.
 2. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein the attack indication to indicate anoccurrence of an attack via an input in the processing environment, theattack comprising one or more of a Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM)attack and a random attack.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising anactor agent to cause a series of actions including the action and theprevious action, and a critic agent to determine a sequence of qualityscores based on each action of the series of actions and an associatedobservation for each action.
 4. The apparatus of claim 3, the criticagent to determine temporal differences between quality scores ofconsecutive actions of the series of actions and the associatedobservations.
 5. The apparatus of claim 4, the critic agent to:determine whether each of the temporal differences exceeds the thresholdvalue; permit the actor agent to cause a next action in the processingenvironment in response to determining a temporal difference of thetemporal differences does not exceed the threshold value; and generatean attack indication and prohibit the actor agent from causing a nextaction, in response to determining a temporal difference of the temporaldifferences exceeds the threshold value.
 6. The apparatus of claim 1, acritic agent to perform a training phase prior to generating the qualityscore and generating the quality score during a testing phase.
 7. Theapparatus of claim 6, the critic agent to train an actor agent duringthe training phase using temporal difference learning.
 8. The apparatusof claim 1, comprising one or more sensor devices to generate data forthe processing environment, the sensor devices comprising a camera, alaser range finder, a radio detection and ranging (RADAR) device, aglobal positioning system (GPS) device, an ultrasonic device, a sounddetection and ranging (SONAR) device, an altimeter, a gyroscope, atachymeter, or an accelerometer.
 9. The apparatus of claim 1, comprisinga storage to store a sequence of quality scores including the qualityscore, each quality score of the sequence of quality scores utilized todetermine a temporal difference.
 10. A computer-implemented method,comprising: generating a quality score based on an observation and anaction, the action performed in a processing environment based on theobservation; determining a temporal difference between the quality scoreand a previous quality score based on a previous observation and aprevious action; determining whether the temporal difference exceeds athreshold value; generating an attack indication when the temporaldifference exceeds the threshold value; and permit processing of a nextobservation and a next action when the temporal difference does notexceed the threshold value.
 11. The computer-implemented method of claim10, wherein the attack indication indicates an occurrence of an attackvia an input in the processing environment, the attack comprising one ormore of a Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM) attack and a random attack.12. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, comprising: causing aseries of actions including the action and the previous action; anddetermining a sequence of quality scores based on each action of theseries of actions and an associated observation for each action.
 13. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 12, comprising determining temporaldifferences between quality scores of consecutive actions of the seriesof actions and the associated observations.
 14. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 13, comprising: determining whether each of the temporaldifferences exceeds the threshold value; permitting a next action in theprocessing environment in response to determining a temporal differenceof the temporal differences does not exceed the threshold value; andgenerating an attack indication and prohibiting a next action, inresponse to determining a temporal difference of the temporaldifferences exceeds the threshold value.
 15. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 10, comprising performing a training phase prior togenerating the quality score and generating the quality score during atesting phase.
 16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15,comprising performing the training during the training phase usingtemporal difference learning.
 17. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 10, comprising receiving data from one or more sensor devices inthe processing environment, the sensor devices comprising a camera, alaser range finder, a radio detection and ranging (RADAR) device, aglobal positioning system (GPS) device, an ultrasonic device, a sounddetection and ranging (SONAR) device, an altimeter, a gyroscope, atachymeter, or an accelerometer.
 18. A non-transitory machine-readablemedium containing instructions, which when executed by a processor,cause the processor to perform operations, the operations to: generate aquality score based on an observation and an action, the actionperformed in a processing environment based on the observation;determine a temporal difference between the quality score and a previousquality score based on a previous observation and a previous action;determine whether the temporal difference exceeds a threshold value;generate an attack indication when the temporal difference exceeds thethreshold value; and permit processing of a next observation and a nextaction when the temporal difference does not exceed the threshold value.19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the attackindication indicates an occurrence of an attack via an input in theprocessing environment, the attack comprising one or more of a FastGradient Sign Method (FGSM) attack and a random attack.
 20. Themachine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations furthercomprise operations to: cause a series of actions including the actionand the previous action; and determine a sequence of quality scoresbased on each action of the series of actions and an associatedobservation for each action.
 21. The machine-readable medium of claim20, wherein the operations further comprise operations to determinetemporal differences between quality scores of consecutive actions ofthe series of actions and the associated observations.
 22. Themachine-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the operations furthercomprise operations to: determine whether each of the temporaldifferences exceeds the threshold value; permit a next action in theprocessing environment in response to determining a temporal differenceof the temporal differences does not exceed the threshold value; andgenerate an attack indication and prohibiting a next action, in responseto determining a temporal difference of the temporal differences exceedsthe threshold value.
 23. The machine-readable medium of claim 18,wherein the operations further comprise operations to perform a trainingphase prior to generating the quality score and generating the qualityscore during a testing phase.
 24. The machine-readable medium of claim23, wherein the operations further comprise operations to perform thetraining during the training phase using temporal difference learning.25. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operationsfurther comprise operations to receive data from one or more sensordevices in the processing environment, the sensor devices comprising acamera, a laser range finder, a radio detection and ranging (RADAR)device, a global positioning system (GPS) device, an ultrasonic device,a sound detection and ranging (SONAR) device, an altimeter, a gyroscope,a tachymeter, or an accelerometer.